Published on: Wednesday, November 04, 2009

By Nancy Royden

In an overwhelmingly Democratic area, Prince George’s County’s Republican Central Committee Chairman Mykel Harris is keeping tabs on officials to make sure they keep government open to the people.

Questions arose during the last part of October as to whether or not a planned meeting during the same time period regarding boundaries and other issues related to next year’s school board elections was abiding by the state’s open meetings act.

Following a meeting on Oct. 26, Harris lauded the Prince George’s County Board of Elections for choosing the “high road” on open and transparent public meetings.

“The Prince George’s County Board of Elections met in an open, emergency meeting at 10 a.m. this morning to decide whether it should attend a private, closed door meeting with the Prince George’s County Senate Delegation at the private office of Terry Speigner, chair of the Democratic Central Committee for Prince George’s County,” he wrote in a media release dated Oct. 26.

Sen. Douglas J.J. Peters, a Democrat representing Prince George’s County’s 23rd District, is also chairman of the county’s senate delegation. He said during a telephone interview the delegation meets monthly, and he did ask Elections Administrator Alisha L. Alexander whether or not there would be enough voting machines for upcoming elections and the board of elections had not been invited to the meeting. He also said there must be 24 senators sitting in a room to have a majority of the House of Delegates present.

Alexander was unavailable for comment Tuesday morning, as she was on a furlough day. Deneen Banks, also of the board of elections office, was not immediately available for comment.

Municipal elections were held Nov. 3 in the City of Bowie, City of College Park and City of Greenbelt.

Harris’s big concern was the question of whether possible attendance of board of elections officials would violate the state’s open meeting act.

“It is my understanding that the PCGBOE had been invited to attend this private closed door meeting and that future pubic policy issues were going to be discussed. Such a meeting would clearly have violated the Act. Given the special duties of the PGCBOE to administer elections in a fair and impartial manner, you can easily see how their presence at a private, closed door, all-Democrat meeting could easily be viewed with suspicion,” Harris wrote in his Oct. 26 media release.

During the Oct. 26 meeting, the board of elections passed two motions regarding meetings, Harris said.

The first measure approved was that the board or its administrator would no longer attend closed meetings with “non-governing bodies, and future invitations by nongoverning bodies can still be accepted, but only if the meeting is open to the public.

The second passed motion authorizes the elections administrator to meet with the county’s senate delegation only if the meetings are open to the public, Harris wrote in the media release.

“Today’s decision is a huge step in the right direction for transparency and open government. The Board has demonstrated that its long tradition of complying with both the letter and spirit of our laws is still intact. While I continue to object loudly about the long-standing practice of the Senate Delegation operating behind closed doors, I must give the PGCBOE their proper credit. When this matter was brought to their attention, they responded swiftly and fairly to address it,” Harris wrote.